Field of the Invention
The technology relates to memory integrated circuits, in particular the word line driver of a memory integrated circuit.
Description of Related Art
Memory integrated circuits access memory cells with word lines powered by word line drivers. With the continuing trend towards decreasing die size and more stringent power requirements, two transistor, or 2T, word line drivers are another alternative.
However, in known 2T word line drivers, the transistor gate dielectric undergoes great electric field stress. For example, the 2T word line driver design of US Patent Application Publication 2011/0149675 requires negative input bias, to turn on the p-type transistor of the 2T word line driver when discharging a word line through the p-type transistor of the 2T word line driver. Without the negative input bias on the 2T word line driver design, the p-type transistor of the 2T word line driver fails to remain on long enough to discharge the word line to ground.